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Index » Radio Paradise/General » General Discussion » USA! USA! USA! Page: 1, 2, 3 ... 24, 25, 26  Next
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R_P

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Posted: Mar 27, 2024 - 7:40pm

Our Real National Security Budget
$2 Trillion, Here We Come.
The expenses that I have just been describing come to $970 billion, but that leaves out a lot.. Add in about $800 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the State Department and its associated agencies, the Department of Homeland Security. And we know now from our Republican friends that border protection is a dire national security issue. Add all that together. Then you can calculate the share for the interest on the debt that we pay each year. All those activities I've just described come to 21% of all federal spending. Calculating in that percentage as a the amount it contributes to the debt burden gives you $254 billion.. And so you add all of that up together and you get $1.767 trillion.

For years we had the Overseas Contingency Operations defense spending, the so called war budget, which was the extra money the military got for actually fighting wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Are we getting back to that?

Yes. The politically-derived budget caps don’t apply to that money. And it’s a lot more than just for the wars; lots of billions for goodies for everybody added each year there. It's all part of the hocus pocus ways that Congress allows itself to appropriate money so it can pretend that it's using restraint, but actually is exploiting all kinds of loopholes to increase whatever cap or restraint they pretend that they've added to the defense budget.

R_P

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Posted: Mar 25, 2024 - 11:22pm

Above the law

haresfur

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Posted: Mar 24, 2024 - 5:43pm

 R_P wrote:
Hawks pushing for 'axis of evil' reunion tour
Lumping US adversaries into a single-headed monster is a paranoid delusion used to fuel militarism
There was no axis then, and there still isn’t one now.

The purpose in tying together unrelated adversaries has always been to exaggerate the size of the threat to the United States to scare policymakers and the public into supporting more military spending and more overseas conflicts. If inflating the threat from any one adversary isn’t enough to instill sufficient fear, the invention of an axis that includes some or all adversaries around the globe can be very useful to hawks. Because it automatically calls to mind World War II and the fight against the Axis Powers, it also helps them to demonize the other states and smother domestic dissent. Supporters of hawkish policies in each region will then have an incentive to embrace the axis rhetoric and reinforce these views among their political allies.



The axis of evil was always bullshit rhetoric, but in practice the current state of cooperation between Russia, Iran, and North Korea is closer to what was put forward when the term was coined than previously. The war-mongering arms trade pipeline between the three developed during the support for the Syrian government and continues to support Russian expansionism and Iran's goals of increasing their influence in the Middle East and Afghanistan/Pakistan. North Korea is mostly in it for the money but also needs the permanent war-footing as the foundation of their politico-cult.
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Posted: Mar 24, 2024 - 10:48am


The Ghost of NordStream
White House sets 'goal' to derail Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline: Official
R_P

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Posted: Mar 22, 2024 - 12:30pm

Hawks pushing for 'axis of evil' reunion tour
Lumping US adversaries into a single-headed monster is a paranoid delusion used to fuel militarism
There was no axis then, and there still isn’t one now.

The purpose in tying together unrelated adversaries has always been to exaggerate the size of the threat to the United States to scare policymakers and the public into supporting more military spending and more overseas conflicts. If inflating the threat from any one adversary isn’t enough to instill sufficient fear, the invention of an axis that includes some or all adversaries around the globe can be very useful to hawks. Because it automatically calls to mind World War II and the fight against the Axis Powers, it also helps them to demonize the other states and smother domestic dissent. Supporters of hawkish policies in each region will then have an incentive to embrace the axis rhetoric and reinforce these views among their political allies.

R_P

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Posted: Mar 21, 2024 - 12:32pm

Defund and privatize the warrior caste for better service/efficiency
U.S. soldiers face a quality-of-living crisis as the Pentagon’s recruitment woes persist, according to top-ranking enlisted officers from across the U.S. military.

“We’ve had a break in trust with our American people,” said Master Chief James Honea, the top enlisted adviser to Navy leadership, in a Wednesday congressional hearing. “We have to do much better at taking care” of our service members, Honea said, adding that he doesn’t want the military to “reach a breaking point” where more people decide to leave the military.

Officers and members of Congress highlighted poorly maintained barracks, food insecurity, sexual violence, and limited access to healthcare and childcare as key problems facing U.S. soldiers today. Economic problems are particularly acute among military families, who often struggle to find jobs for civilian spouses and proper food and healthcare for their children.

“It's time for our actions to match up with our words, as far as putting families above everything else,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).

The hearing gives insight into why the military is struggling to recruit soldiers even as Pentagon bigwigs prepare for a potential war with China in the coming years. According to a newly released Blue Star Families survey, only 32% of active-duty military families would recommend service to others — a 23-point drop since 2016. (...)

R_P

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Posted: Mar 20, 2024 - 8:43pm

The Manichaean Recycling Corp.
Looks Like ‘Axis of Evil’ Is Back on the Menu (Nov. 29, 2023)
US Officials Warn of New ‘Axis of Evil’ With China at the Fore (Today)
thisbody

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Posted: Mar 14, 2024 - 12:31pm

It seems to take eons for Americans to understand what is more than obvious to the rest of the world (and not veiled in capitalist neo-con word-doobage designed to hail a down-going empire, and paint shades of glory, where there really is only shame that could be painted).

And this happens with the unconscious help of all their vassal nations "deep asleep" in their own neo-liberal black plague.

Capitalism is killing lives while it is filling singular pockets. From the beginning to the end. Only thing, towards the end, it'll eat itself completely. And this has begun to happen everywhere. A true incarnation of perversity and perversion (i.e. self-destruction) in the truest form: Neo-liberalism, paired with neo-conservatism in it's worst form. All hail to their inventors, the US of A!

A failed nation has (hundreds of) thousands of tent-dwellers and uninsured heroes, performing essentially needful surgery on themselves when they have to... plus cleaning the better offs' garbage for edibles and wearables (not what you think)...

Home of the poor and downtrodden!

And YES - there are those claiming this be PUTIN - closing their eyes to the truth on the streets and in the country. The blind leading the blind so to speak... gaslighting away from their shortcomings to other nations' problems - or throwing smoke screens of important (!) issues to the public, like a Royal family member photo-shopping their own image. Or the Oscars! Sorry, gotta puke again.......

Let me puke, SIr, please!

There was someone speaking such truths - and he's still being crucified every day, even after two thousand years.

(Who feels it knows it, Lord.)
R_P

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Posted: Mar 14, 2024 - 12:04pm

How Biden's 'A-team' squandered its foreign policy opportunity
A lot has changed since of the end of Alex Ward's The Internationalists. Not much of it is good for the administration.
R_P

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Posted: Mar 10, 2024 - 11:07am

The West’s Reckoning?
The West has set itself on a path of collective suicide — both moral and economic.
This Prophetic Academic Now Foresees the West’s Defeat
Emmanuel Todd, a historian and anthropologist, has a knack for prediction.
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Posted: Mar 7, 2024 - 12:33pm


R_P

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Posted: Mar 5, 2024 - 11:07am


Beelzebub, third-highest ranking US diplomat and critic of Russia’s war in Ukraine, retiring
Victoria Nuland never shook the mantle of ideological meddler
No doubt a cushy job at The Institute of Warmongers family business awaits.
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Posted: Mar 1, 2024 - 2:04pm

"Moderate rebels"
Ex-ISIS chief appointed as commander of US-backed militia in Syria
US forces have been training the Syria Free Army in its occupation base in Al-Tanf, eastern Syria
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Posted: Mar 1, 2024 - 10:58am

Neocon Iraq war architects want a redo in Gaza
Post-conflict plan would put Western mercenaries and Israel military into the mix, with handpicked countries in charge of a governing ‘Trust’

Several key architects of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq 21 years ago are presenting a plan for rebuilding and “de-radicalizing” the surviving population of Gaza, while ensuring that Israel retains “freedom of action” to continue operations against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The plan, which was published as a report Thursday by the hard-line neo-conservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, or JINSA, and the Vandenberg Coalition, is calling for the creation of a private entity, the “International Trust for Gaza Relief and Reconstruction” to be led by “a group of Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates” and “supported by the United States and other nations.”

With regard to Palestinian participation, the report by the “Gaza Futures Task Force,” envisages an advisory board “composed primarily of non-Hamas Gazans from Gaza, the West Bank, and diaspora.” In addition, the Palestinian Authority, which is based on the West Bank, “should be consulted in, and publicly bless,” the creation of the Trust while itself undergoing a process of “revamping.”


R_P

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Posted: Feb 26, 2024 - 4:48pm


🤡 Or sanction them.
haresfur

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Posted: Feb 25, 2024 - 4:19pm

 R_P wrote:

How Russia Thrived Despite Unprecedented Sanctions
westslope

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Posted: Feb 25, 2024 - 12:30pm

 Lazy8 wrote:

This is a familiar trope for you to trot out, but it seems absurdly contradictory on the face of it. Laws—international or otherwise—are rules.

Accuse the US of hypocrisy all you like but that doesn't invalidate the concept, because the alternative to a rules-based order is a power-based order. We see this writ large by the authoritarian despots you relentlessly cheerlead for: they do what they like to whom they please because they can, and we should just let them. Empowering those they do it to is warmongering because it prolongs their agony. They should just surrender and accept their fates.

Funny, attacking them in the first place isn't warmongering, it's totally legitimate. Because...history. Or something.

You'll respond to this (if you do at all) with a pithy one-liner or yet another cut&paste screed, but it would be interesting to know how you square these circles in your own head. Not some RT mouthpiece's head, not some convoluted digression flinging rhetorical dust in the air, just explain how you want nations to interact with each other. 

Lazy8,  I am trying to figure out the difference between your approach to public policy and that of a sack full of rank and file MAGA Republicans; I do not see it.  

Anti-data, science and expertise.   Prone to 'us versus them' stereotypes and arguments.  

No fundamental respect for well-defined and secure economic property rights.   Not much interest in this nebulous concept of the 'right to self-determination'.    



R_P

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Posted: Feb 25, 2024 - 10:34am

Exposing the Devastating & Hidden Reality of US Sanctions

thisbody

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Posted: Feb 25, 2024 - 9:48am

 R_P wrote:
Biden wants to put the US on permanent war footing
The new 'defense industrial strategy' is a boon for the arms makers, not so much for regular Americans
The Biden administration is supersizing the defense industry to meet foreign arms obligations instead of making tradeoffs essential to any effective budget. Its new National Defense Industrial Strategy lays out a plan to “catalyze generational change” of the defense industrial base and to “meet the strategic moment” — one rhetorically dominated by competition with China, but punctuated by U.S. support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Instead of reevaluating its maximalist national security strategy, the Biden administration is doubling down. It is proposing a generation of investment to expand an arms industry that, overall, fails to meet cost, schedule, and performance standards. And if its strategy is any indication, the administration has no vision for how to eventually reduce U.S. military industrial capacity.

I was gonna post the same thing just now!

R_P

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Posted: Feb 24, 2024 - 11:40am

Biden wants to put the US on permanent war footing
The new 'defense industrial strategy' is a boon for the arms makers, not so much for regular Americans
The Biden administration is supersizing the defense industry to meet foreign arms obligations instead of making tradeoffs essential to any effective budget. Its new National Defense Industrial Strategy lays out a plan to “catalyze generational change” of the defense industrial base and to “meet the strategic moment” — one rhetorically dominated by competition with China, but punctuated by U.S. support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Instead of reevaluating its maximalist national security strategy, the Biden administration is doubling down. It is proposing a generation of investment to expand an arms industry that, overall, fails to meet cost, schedule, and performance standards. And if its strategy is any indication, the administration has no vision for how to eventually reduce U.S. military industrial capacity.

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